Kodifikaciju Maksla Part Deux

Back in March Gundega Strautmane organized in exhibition of text codification in Liepaja. Recently the exhibition traveled to Lūznava manor. The exhibition opened on July 17th and will be there until August 17th.

Here are some photos of my stuff. Courtesy of Dagnija Bernāne.

Stephen Berkman - Woman Hand-Knitting a Condom

This is a photography of a woman hand-knitting a condom. Ok. If you wonder whether it is practical or not - try not to think too hard about it. The dating is presumably late 19th century. People loved to photograph stupid things then.

The photo was made by Stephen Berkman for his book Predicting the Past—Zohar Studios: The Lost Years. It is a collection of stylized photographs that tells the story and shows the ouevre of Zohar Studios. The story goes - its founder Shimmel Zohar immigrated to United States in the 1850s and opened his photo studio on Lower East Side. He intended to capture the gist of the time he lived in. The studio was popular among the locals and managed to capture the weirder side of its clients.

It is a simple yet effective premise to showcase some inventive retrophotography while avoiding being mid-2000s hipster pretentious. It is also a good way to smoothly immerse the viewer into the world. Having a narrative behind a collection of images is much more engaging than just dumping a bunch of oddball images with no context.

The book is a great example of hauntology done right. From the aesthetic standpoint, you have a combination of early photography quirks (after all, one of the most prominent photos of the early years was an autoportrait as a drown man) with 20th century subversive explorations of psyche as seen in the works of Joel-Peter Witkin with an oddity grounded by the way of Diane Arbus. 

Things get weird, but not weird as a statement or weird for the sake of weird - the scenarios fit the narrative "oh yeah, this thing would be fun". And it is a tough balancing act because of temptation of going overboard. 

The other great photo from the book is classic bodypart substitution called "Obscura Object" in the head of a woman in a strict dress is replaced with a train whistle. While it is closer to things Man Ray was doing in 1910s-1920s

William Carlos Williams' This is Just to Say: The Game. On Calum Rodger's "Gotta Eat the Plums"

 

Poem as a point and click adventure. Given the fact that pretty much every walking simulator "art game" is trying to evoke those "poetic" "instances" and generate "poetic experience" by its non-gameplay - it would have been obvious just to adapt a poem into a game.

At the very least, adapting the text into a game mechanic and interpreting the plot would be a good creative challenge - definitely more focused than usual nondescript "pushing through some images and feeling feelings doing that".

But for some reason, I've never seen such projects up until now. I've seen interactive poetry, I've seen games that quote poems, but no game adaptations of poems (Dante's Inferno doesn't count).

And now Calum Rodger did just that with "Gotta Eat the Plums". William Carlos Williams' poem This is Just to Say (aka the one about being sorry about eating the plums) is probably the best candidate for such experiment.

In the recent years, This is Just to Say had experienced a resurgence because of twitterbots doing procedural variations of the text and numerous parodies trending on social media (even i did a variation last year). It is easy to see why the poem is popular - it is relatable and easy to follow.

We all had moments like this, so the poem soaks all those experiences and permutates with each reader' reflection. On the other hand, it retains boundary-pushing drive of modernist poetry while almost poking fun at other poets of its time like of Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Basil Bunting or e.e. cummings. It does the same things but in a simpler and more efficient manner.


"Gotta Eat the Plums" lets you to experience the poem from inside out, to get the poem. It is an attempt to recreate the thought process, the drama roiling behind the text. You play as William Carlos Williams up at night, hungry. He came down to "investigate" the kitchen for something to eat. That's the first part of the game.

 

You can turn the music on if you want. The soundtrack is Erik Satie's Gymnopedia #1, because of course, ye olde vaporwave vibe, pal. It gets maddening after a while. You can also look in the window and contemplate the starry night sky. There is also a cat walking around, expecting to get his piece of the action. You can look at his dish, but there is nothing for a poet. You can consider the asphodel as a solution.
But the main task is to search the kitchen cupboards for consumables. You don't want to cook anything so you are left with no choice but to open the refrigerator.

There you find an icebox with plums.

That's where the gear shifts gears and turns into a battle of will and hunger.

The thing is - the plums are not yours and it is probably a good idea to suck it up and find a way out of without making grounds for the conflict.

You can wrestle with your conscience for some time, but the hunger is stronger and the only way you can proceed is to eat those plums.

And then, overwhelmed with guilt, you'll write the note, that is actually a poem the game is based on. Curtains.

"Gotta eat the plums" makes "This is just to say" new. That's how you do an adaptation of the piece. Enough said.

Never Be Game Over

Believe it or not - this is not related to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and one of its characters - Quiet. It is a snapshot from one of the final issues of Matt Fraction / Chip Zdarsky Image comics series Sex Criminals (aka the one that went out with one hell of a whimper). But it fits really well into Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain lore and sentiments in the aftermath of Quiet's Exit.

Five years too late.

Mark A. Lewis - The Thaw (2009) Review

"The Thaw" is 2009 Canadian horror film directed by Mark A. Lewis and written in collaboration with Michael Lewis. In a nutshell, "The Thaw" is like X-Files episode "Ice" combined with some John Carpenter's "The Thing" vibes.

The film is a representative of an ecological horror niche, so it is less about the thrills and kills and more about constructing a hypothetical situation and exploring themes.

The film tells the story of Canadian Arctic research station on Banks Island that studies the effects of Global Warming. The group is led by renowned environmental activist David Kruipen (played by Val Kilmer), who tries to warn everybody that things are dire and if we don't take any action soon enough - it would be too late. You know - just what global warming guys are usually saying. For the most part - he is not very successful in his quest, but he is respected well enough to maintain his research.

Banks Island is an example of severe effects of climate change. From Kruipen's point of view - it is a middle of a war zone. In the past it was covered in ice and now there is only small patch of it left. The island manages to look both unassuming and horrifyingly devastated at the same time. Desaturated colour scheme also contributes greatly to the overall devastation/desolation feel

The film opens with the team making a breakthrough discovery. While observing a polar bear who for some reason came back to an island - they discover the remains of the woolen mammoth buried in the ice. The thaw brought it back to the surface and polar bear found it. But that's not all.

Then things go off the rails, as the polar bear falls ill and dies. Then members of the team start to succumb to the unknown disease. This leaves Kruipen with some tough choices to make.

In the meantime, the station expects a group of students to arrive for science practice. Kruipen used this as an opportunity to patch things up with his estranged daughter Evelyn. At first he pulls her in thinking that he is going to share with her his greatest scientific triumph. She reluctantly agrees. Then, upon realizing that things are going southward, Kruipen tries to prevent her from coming in. Due to pre-existing conflict between the two, Evelyn disregards the latter attempts and comes in regardless.

When the group arrives, they find an empty station. After some walking around they find a body of dead polar bear. The discovery is suspicious enough for them to try to contact Kruipen's group on the radio. But the radio conversation leaves more questions than answers and the only thing the group is left to do is to wait until Kruipen's party comes back.

Meanwhile strange things start to happen. Students are attacked by strange insects and one of the Kruipen's colleagues arrives to the base alone and severely ill. It appears that she killed Kruipen to escape from something.

To make things worse, for some reason she breaks the helicopter equipment so that no one could get out of there. After a while she succumbs to the unknown illness. It becomes clear that those insects are related to it - they infest the host and breed inside the body slowly consuming it.

This throws the group into a frenzy. Two of the students and a pilot are already  infected and it is a question of time when the rest will follow suit. Paranoia gets better of them and things get bloody. Then Kruipen reappears and it seems like things are going to get under control. However, Evelyn discovers his notes and tapes and finds out her father's real intentions regarding his discovery. And that's where the film stops being just another low-budget horror film and does some high drama.

The story goes. In the past, David Kruipen was an environmental activist. The lack of impact of activism turned him into a radical and it led him to blowing up an oil pipeline.

This made him something of a legendary figure in the community.  After that he moved on from radicalism into more reasonable ways and tried to make difference with facts and research.

However, the more he tried to uncover the effects of global warming and convince people to make changes - the less he accomplished. No one cared. You have to agree that when you are trying to change people's opinion on an important subject matter to no avail over and over again - that might be quite dispiriting. And you what that does to people - it makes them desperate. The thing with desperation is that it makes people go to extremes.

Kruipen was desperate to do something that would have a long-lasting effect. And when he discovered mammoth remains and found out about the parasites inside - he knew he was onto something. His grand plan was to infect himself with parasites, get back on the mainland, start an outbreak that will kill a lot of people and after the outbreak is contain - this will convince everybody that they need to take care of ecology and change their ways of life.

It is quite far-fetched, but seems plausible from the standpoint of a man who has no idea how to prove his point after so many failed attempts.

This character arc elevates the film from standard isolated horror to fall from grace narrative. Kruipen is barely in the film but his shadows lingers over it. We see his plan roll out in a microcosm of the research station. And then we get the big kick - Evelyn finds out her father's real intentions and confronts him about that and he agrees with her but goes on with his plan. Kruipen is aware of how misguided and delusional his plan is - but he proceeds because it might work out this time.

And he fails because things are bleak enough to get some retribution.

Sometimes the film is more than sum of its parts. This happens when the film manages to build enough substance around itself. And it expands the film beyonds its actual scope. This aspect can make you appreciate the film even more despite its apparent flaws. That's pretty much what "The Thaw" manages to do.

Michael Winterbottom - I Want You (1998) Review

Michael Winterbottom is one of the most interesting British filmmakers of the past 30 years, even though he doesn't really get the respect he deserves. Nevertheless, his films are full of the creative invention one can be amazed.

Here are several examples.

• 24 Hour Party People is the pitch-perfect music scene biopic that meticulously mixes fact and fiction to generate the authentic vibe of the times it depicts. 
• On the other hand, A Cock and Bull Story, his adaptation of Lawrence Stern's Tristram Shandy. It adopts the storytelling techniques of the source material to create yet another narrative layer about the film crew making a film adaptation. 
• There are also 9 Songs - a near-abstract exploration of an intimate relationship combined with a bunch of fancam concert recordings that coincidentally provide a contextual commentary over what is going on in-between. 

And then there is I Want You.

Due to a variety of reasons, it is one of the lesser-seen films in Winterbottom's body of work. This film was made right after Winterbottom made his breakthrough with Jude and Welcome to Sarajevo, and yet I Want You suffered from distribution issues, which made the film hard to come by.

I Want You is a brooding, expressionist melodrama built upon the conventions of the neo-noir genre. It is a story of two people trying but unable to move on. A young man Martin is coming back after a stint in jail and trying to get his life back together. He was involved in a horrible crime, but now it is behind him. OR so it seems. And then there is a young woman named Helen. She and Martin were previously in a relationship. But now she seems to have moved on only to be haunted by her past once again. OR so it seems.

On the surface, it seems like a pretty standard kitchen sink melodrama full of pondering and rumination and a little bit of reflection here and there. But it turns out to be something else. For the lack of the better word, the film camouflages itself as a brooding melodrama while there is this dark backward roiling over. Here is where Neo-Noir thing kicks in. Subversion is one of the great things about the Neo-Noir film genre. By design, neo-noir film does things differently, and that allows them to move beyond the conventions and explore different kinds of narratives within a recognizable template.

That what I Want You does. It is a master class in misdirection and subversion. The term that best describes what this film does is "sleight of hand." You have a surface plot going on, and it never seems to be a ruse, because it is not. It is just interpreted differently due to a lack of cohesive context. We get bits and pieces of context along the way, and it fits together well. Except, there is more to it. The dramatic action gradually escalates to the boiling point, and upon reaching the climax, everything comes into place, except it is different. The puzzle that was coming together until then turned out to be something else.

Here's what is going on. Martin is a broken man, riddled with guilt and in search of closure. He doesn't really know where he is going and what he is going to do. All he has left are festering ruins of a relationship he tries to cauterize. On the other hand, Helen is deeply traumatized by her experience with Martin. She is a victim, a survivor. While she is trying to maintain a semblance of a normal life, she is unable to have a proper relationship with other men. So, for the most part, she just tries to trudge along with life from day to day.

The film establishes this narrative and reinforces it each time Martin and Helen bump into each other.

Martin is not supposed to see Helen. That would violate the terms of his parole, and he would go back to jail. But for reasons of unresolved feelings, he still tries to reconnect with her. Every time they meet - it is an awkward and odd dead end. Martin tries to come forward, but Helen rejects his attempts. Time after time, he tries to talk; she doesn't want to. Even after he saves her from being raped. Martin is depicted as an obsessive stalker. But it is more than meets the eye.

It is then revealed that Helen's reaction is such that Martin had killed her father back in the day. So her reactions are reasonable in this context. And Martin seems to acknowledge that. He just wants to get over it and move on. And so things are kind of settled. Eventually, they have sex to get closure, and that's it. Martin is moving away to the other town, Helen seems to move on with the other relationship. The story's done.

That's where the kitchen sink drama would stop. Everything's wrapped up. But it is not. Martin comes back one more time to set things straight.

But if the conflict is exhausted, there is no real tension left - why this whole thing still goes on? If Martin accepts what he had done and moves on if Helen is over it - why the narrative just resets and starts the last beat all over again? Is it going to amp up the melodrama part to wrap things up the hard way? Why bother with such an overwrought ending? It doesn't make much sense at the moment because it is so predictable. But it is more than meets the eye.

And that disorienting disquieting annoyance of obviousness is by design. Martin is unable to move on, and so he comes to sort things out. Because Helen just wants to get rid of Martin once and for all, she seems to act with preventive aggression. Her line of thinking - give him what he wants and get over it. She coerces Martin into forcing himself on her only to be stopped by the boy who also happened to be in the house.

That's where neo-noir subversion kicks into high gear.

Martin reveals that Helen actually killed her father, and Martin took the hit for her only to get a cold shoulder afterward. Helen bludgeons him in retaliation. With the boy's help, she disposes of the body just like she did with Martin years ago.

It is the plot twist that doesn't really function as a plot twist because while it adds new information to the story, it doesn't change anything.

The revelation shifts the dynamics of the story. Martin was the complicit victim all along, and he tried to cope with it. Helen becomes a much more proactive character in retrospect. We don't know who Helen's father was - so there is a question whether Helen's family was dysfunctional. Judging by Helen's tendency to disobey what other men want her to do - we can assume that her father was a controlling one, and she strived for independence. We can assume that murder was probably not premeditated and committed on impulse.

In other words, Helen replaced her supposed victimhood of the dysfunctional family with the other victimhood by committing a murder and feeling the guilt over avoiding retribution. The murder got her a certain level of independence and rendered her unable to enjoy it fully. With that baggage, she naturally wanted to pretend all of that was in the past. Martin threw a wrench in that, and so the story repeated itself.

It is a grand narrative trick. On the one hand, it recontextualizes the story. At the same time, it doesn't discard anything that happened before reveal - it just adds another dimension to the story that significantly expands the characters and their motivations. It shows how destructive such actions can be.

And that's something worth admiring.